If you want to play, you’ve got to pay.
We’re not talking about dropping chips onto a table, either. Casino and gaming venue owners and floor managers understand their customers are paying dearly for outdated technology interfaces that are anything but seamless.
Everything from the user interface, player support, app functionality, drinks service, and integration of the experience across multiple games is up for grabs.
We know we can do better. The gaming industry is losing wallet share, new customers,, and engagement.
But you don’t have to settle for how things have always been done. Technology can create an integrated, user-friendly, personalized approach that lets your customers settle in for the long haul. Even better? These tools pay for themselves in retention, faster interfaces, fewer complaints, and, ultimately, more dollars spent.
As generations shift, consumer expectations evolve. For example, Gen Z encompasses about one-third of the global population and 87% play video games every week.
The Drum describes the opportunity that lies within this demographic:
“Gen Z is much more accustomed to a ‘connected life’ which can explain their attraction to gaming. They are often looking for community and a sense of belonging in their hyper-digital lives. Gaming gives them the outlet for self-expression, immersion, connection, and relaxation.”
Gen Z expects a seamless, engaging, integrated, personalized digital experience. These digital natives cut their baby teeth on the smartest and most user-friendly applications. If the industry wants to attract them, they better ante up.
It’s not just the younger population that wants a better customer experience. Go onto the floor of any casino and ask a Baby Boomer how long it takes to get a drink at their machine. Ask another how much they love it when their dealer remembers and recognizes their preferences, where they’re from, and their name. What if they could get that personalization in every encounter?
With legalized sports betting and skills-based gaming expanding, we have opportunities to reach customers who historically haven’t spent time in a casino setting. Today, 35 states and the District of Columbia have legalized commercial sports betting. Pew Research in 2022 said 1 in 5 U.S. adults placed sports bets in the prior year — with 6% using a digital app to make their play.
As we increasingly rely upon digital tools, the gaming industry must consider an upgrade—or risk losing customers to the competition.
Here's how redesigning the customer experience from a user-centered perspective could relieve eight big pain points in the gaming industry.
While the new, younger target audience is digitally savvy, they may grow frustrated with legacy loyalty programs. Whether on a ship, in a casino, or in another game play setting, signing up for the loyalty perks and comps program is a hurdle. Or you may find a less than digitally savvy older player struggling with the sign-in screens.
Creating friction at the first point of contact may ensure a customer doesn’t return. First-time users who can't figure out how to put money in to get playing often leave the machine to do something else, or they call a worker to help them. That uses up valuable staff time they could devote somewhere else.
Take the first-time user experience process. We know it can take guests up to four minutes – from putting in their cards to getting funding to starting to play. Federal, state, and regional municipalities regulate gaming. You must prove your identity, validate your personal information and go through several other steps to set up an account. So, it's not inherently easy.
The goal should be to improve that experience where possible to reduce friction and ensure a seamless and easy experience right out of the gate.
It can shave that four minutes down to even as low as a minute.
Creating loyalty and driving retention via login for rewards should be fun and easy, but that’s not always the case. From the customer’s perspective, it’s simple. You need to know how to get started. If you get frustrated in the signup process, you may not finish. It is a make-or-break moment.
Gamification can create positive interactions in a branded interface, so guests start having fun even when registering to play.
The goal should be to encourage longer playtime for enhanced fun for the customer (and more wallet share for the organization). The longer they sit at a machine, the more chances they have to win big. The same is true for gaming tables.
To keep a smile on your customer’s face, make that experience—from start to finish—as seamless and stress-free as possible.
One of the perks of casino gameplay is the complimentary refreshments. If you can get the drink to the customer quickly, they’ll likely stay put longer.
However, the perk guests love most is their No. 1 pain point: Getting a drink often takes too long.
But what if casinos could enhance the atmosphere by providing faster and on-demand drinks and other amenities? What about ordering drinks from an app rather than flagging someone down? Simply pull up a menu and order what you want.
The staff can see who you are and where you are currently on the floor through your card-in status. When the drink is ready, the bar taps "ready to go," flagging waitstaff. It's seamless. The guest never grows frustrated. The waitstaff receives a larger tip. The business keeps the customer satisfied and in their seat, spending more money and having fun.
Delight and surprise customers with a connected, highly personalized experience that welcomes them into the casino or gaming facility. The guests love that the staff knows their names and "remembers" them, which builds loyalty.
Personalized player identification and floor management apps can engage customers at every stage of their visit. These tools can follow the guest around the building, creating custom interactions based on prior behaviors and preferences. AI will make it even easier to enhance gameplay with a truly individualized experience.
For example, what if your customer orders a drink and then wants to get up and move to a new machine? They can’t move until it comes. So, what if floor management software showed the server exactly who was gaming and where?
Another way to keep your customer connected addresses the frequently disjointed nature of the gaming experience: Segueing to another game requires time spent traveling, which takes away from gaming. For instance, customers must get up from a machine or a table to look at the odds of sports betting. But what if your guests could access multiple gaming options from one phone application so they don’t have to get up?
Less technological friction means more fun. And that includes machine downtime. If a slot machine breaks or need of regular maintenance for any reason, and a customer has to wait for service, they’re just stuck. After all, their card is in the machine.
In many casinos, that means hitting the help button and waiting for someone to notice the red light that lights up on top of your machine. If no one notices, you have to wave someone down. Your card is in the machine, so you don’t want to leave. It’s a terrible experience.
In addition, when someone finally comes, a technician must open the machine. If they do that, the machine must be audited: Why was the door on the machine opened? Who opened it? What was done?
With the right technology, this can a seamless and fast experience. Instead of waiting for someone to see a red light, a notification is sent via an app all floor staff has access to and will receive notifications from that a machine needs service. Instead of manual auditing, the app tracks why the machine was opened and the person who did it.
It’s all about getting the customer back to playing sooner.
Casinos are an excellent example of how gaming organizations can offer a variety of ways to play and spend. Today, most humans multitask, from dropping their kids off at school to waiting in line at the grocery store.
Imagine you’re at a slot machine, and you hit spin. But you’re also playing on your phone, doing sports booking or Tetris .
These experiences may currently be siloed—multiple apps built by multiple companies—but they don't have to be. The old-school end-user experience doesn't allow branding or cross-promotion. New technology lets a single business capture wallet share with games under a single brand while tracking user activity to ensure a better experience the next time the guest logs in.
Skills-based gaming is one of the newer trends in the industry. It's appealing to the risk-averse and opens the market further to a new demographic. Rather than a game of chance, skills-based gaming allows users to improve at a game.
It's a series of similar behaviors: Line up the arrow and pull the right way to get strength and direction on the shot. Skilled-based games allow practice or playing against someone else, and the algorithms put equally skilled players together so one doesn't get clobbered. I keep going if I’m matched via algorithm to an opponent of similar ability so I can be sure I’m not taken for a rook.
Safe gaming is responsible gaming, and businesses have a responsibility to promote this message. Technology can help with branded messaging and education programs that support governmental efforts to ensure responsible gaming standards are in place.
In an era of digital technologies, safe gaming should include software to detect fraud patterns and improve cybersecurity. These apps can target accounts that show a guest pattern of spending at the first of the month, which could indicate the guest is putting their entire budget into gaming.
ProfitOptics white-label technology solutions for the casino and gaming industry can overlay existing systems to create a faster, more intuitive user experience. These tools create a seamless interconnected ecosystem that creates an improved user experience while increasing revenue for our clients.
ProfitOptics provides modern software for the gaming industry that increases your wallet share and gives players exactly what they want. We can improve the customer experience in your gaming business. Contact us to find out how.
